


Edges, Dented and Dulled

by moonlightskies (blossomclouds)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Clary, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:17:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21661432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blossomclouds/pseuds/moonlightskies
Summary: Maia gets turned into a werewolf and comes to live in the forests of Idris. Clary is the rogue assassin that kind of, maybe abducts her.
Relationships: Clary Fray/Maia Roberts
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6
Collections: shadowhunters sapphic ficathon





	Edges, Dented and Dulled

**Author's Note:**

> this is a little thing for the prompt from the [shadowhunters sapphic ficathon](https://twitter.com/shsapphicfics):
> 
> This is not your destruction.
> 
> so, here we go!

This is how they get each other the lone wolf of Idris and the bloodletter of Alicante:

Maia comes to the Shadowland when she has nowhere else to go. She’s Turned and half out of her mind, and as soon as she smuggles herself in she bolts for the woods. Scars on her heart open every time she sheds her skin for fur, but the wolf knows how to survive and Maia doesn’t anymore, she doesn’t think.

There aren’t that many others like her here, though she finds traces that show there were. She avoids the packs that roam the borders to the mundane world. They’ll force her to be human, to remember, and to trust them to protect her. She can’t let that happen.

She protects _herself_ now. So she carves out her spot between the leaves of Idris’ inner forest and bares her teeth, makes sure no one comes near her again.

Then one day she catches the iron scent of human blood and everything changes.

Clary comes to Alicante prepared to complete her father’s vision. He pulls the strings and she cuts those he can’t reach. Sometimes she listens a little too long before she strikes and sometimes she ignores the meaningless underlings, but she’s as good as her father expects and that keeps her alive.

Most of the time she’s based right there, in the heart of the city, under the noses of the investigators with a smug thrill. But that’s not what she likes. She likes the days she gets to spend on the fringes, in the woods, in the walls, in the wild. It’s not the nature that appeals to her, but the freedom. Her father is all she has and yet she yearns to be rid of him at times - to go wherever she wants.

But that isn’t her mission. So she makes her blade sing and scoffs at anyone who tries to get in her way.

Then one day she catches a wolf with eyes too human and everything changes.

* * *

This is how they save each other the girl without a pack and the girl raised from hate:

Maia wakes to red, red, red.

The girl guarding her is sharpening her knife and smells like death. She doesn’t turn around when Maia feels out her surroundings, but she speaks, complete self-assurance in her slight figure. As Maia takes in the sparsely furnished room her stomach sinks. She’s a wolf without a pack and she’s far from home.

Clary – who reveals name only after they’ve changed locations twice – keeps her around and doesn’t really seem to know why. Maia doesn’t have the answer, either. They inch closer to Alicante incrementally, that’s the only thing she’s figured out so far and she knows that when they get there, she’s dead. Clary’s held back by something, though. It can be seen in the little cracks – the tension of her shoulders and the crease between her eyebrows.

Persuasion is a human game that Maia hasn’t mastered even when she was still only mundane, but she takes her chance when they reach their fourth hiding place. The silver flash of Clary’s knife doesn’t keep her from seeing the furious pain rage across her face. She doesn’t tell her anything of substance. But she opens the windows that evening and leaves the bed to Maia. They never make it to Alicante and when they don't, Clary looks at her and tells her to run because _he's coming,_ but Maia doesn't run.

Under her pain and grit lies a peace she doesn’t know what to do with.

Clary falls asleep to green, green, green.

The wolf is curled up next to the tree she’s leaning against and watching her with her glowing ember eyes. She shouldn’t leave herself this vulnerable, her father’s voice screams in her head. But she’s exhausted and bloodied. And Maia – the _wolf_ – had thrown herself against their attackers without regard for her own safety. She’d dragged them both into the woods. She’d fussed over Clary’s wounds as much as a wolf could.

Clary sleeps.

There is no rhyme or reason to the ones hunting them, which makes her almost certain that it’s her father. She has a lot of other enemies but she’s better than them. These guys come close to matching her and they have a casual disregard for her companion. (It ignites a flame in her chest, how they stare at Maia in the middle of the forest as they chase them deeper and deeper into it, and she kills them for it.) Still, they haven’t caught them yet.

Maia asks her once, what changed. Clary doesn’t answer, but it’s on the tip of her tongue how Maia laughed once and it thawed her or how she looks when she decides to stay even though Clary has given her every opportunity to leave.

She stares into the fire, but nothing is warmer than Maia’s thigh against hers.

* * *

This is how they live with each other, the woman scarred by the world beyond the borders and the woman scorned by the world inside them:

Maia makes breakfast with a perverse kind of pleasure. She hasn’t had a reason to look forward to human food in a long time. Clary eats everything she makes, but she knows it’s good when she sees closed eyes to cherish the unexpected luxury Clary’s father never thought necessary.

They both have nightmares and that makes breakfast harder. It will take years before Clary will sleep without a blade under her pillow. It will take years before Maia steps foot in the community college to sign up for new classes.

It's difficult to find work. Clary is beyond qualified, but unfit for society, and Maia is hard-working, but used to a different skin. But eventually they manage. Maia gets behind a bar and Clary bounces between jobs in security until she saves the life of a warlock called Dot. She never works for anyone else.

Their demons follow them. Maia almost kills a man when she catches him chasing after a woman and she doesn’t leave the bed for a week after. Clary’s eyes glaze over when they get word of Valentine’s death and she doesn’t speak a word for hours. Maia runs off to the woods after their worst fight and Clary comes home with a broken leg when Maia tells her that she needs to be less reckless.

These are their broken puzzle pieces, but they choose to take them on every single day.

Clary lets herself get swallowed up by the city masses sometimes, and coasts until she forgets where she is and which face belongs to her. But at the end of the day she always returns to the tiny apartment on the third floor. To Maia who always knows who she is.

At night she goes out sometimes, keeping well out of sight of other Nephilim, but every time she draws blood now it’s a struggle. More often than not she stays in. She collects fuzzy socks and clings to Maia’s warmth when they snuggle. She takes care not to inflict any new scars on Maia, not even in the dead of night when she’s made to lose composure by her. In turn Maia makes her human, lets her press close and shows her how to hurt in a better way.

They get a car after they both learn how to drive. On weekends they leave the city behind. Maia likes the sea and the wind and Clary likes the wildness. It reminds her of days of running with a wolf and discovering air to breathe and touching her hand to dark skin broken up by scars. So she holds Maia by the hips and tips her head back to face the sky.

Their freedom is something she’ll never allow to be taken from them again.

This is not their destruction. This is their long way up.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr [here.](https://natesophie.tumblr.com/)


End file.
